CUHK
News Centre

Dr. Ma Peifeng, a PhD graduate of the Institute of Space and Earth Science (ISEIS) of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), has been awarded a 2016 AXA Research Fund Post-Doctoral Fellowship. Dr. Ma is the only recipient from the greater China region this year, and also the first one from CUHK. 

Dr. Ma’s winning project was named ‘Remote Sensing of Infrastructural Dynamics and Early Warning of Risks for a Sustainable Built Environment’, which is research continuing from his doctoral study. Dr. Ma is grateful for the award. He attributes this success to his professional progress during his doctoral studies, his mentor’s guidance, the open professional environment provided by ISEIS, the careful advice from Prof. Lin Hui, director of ISEIS, for his post-doctoral research plan, and the unique capacity of the ISEIS satellite remote sensing receiving station to receive world class radar satellite images. 

Dr. Ma started his PhD studies in CUHK in 2013. Supervised by Prof. Lin Hui, he conducted a study of the synthetic aperture radar remote sensing technology for monitoring urban ground subsidence and infrastructural deformation. This technology, similar to the Computed Tomography (CT) technique in medical use, can scan urban infrastructures over large areas with centimeter to millimeter deformation estimation accuracy using satellite images. It is an important tool in structural health diagnosis and an early warning of geo-hazards like building collapse and sinkhole subsidence. 

The AXA Research Fund Post-Doctoral Fellowship was launched in 2008 to encourage scientific research that would contribute to understanding and preventing environmental, life, and socio-economic risks. Each year, the AXA Research Fund offers Post-Doctoral Fellowships to outstanding young researchers. Each grant amounts to a maximum of €130,000 for a duration of 24 months. This year, around 400 applications were received and 29 applicants gained a Fellowship.